Inside Politics: Boris Johnson prepares to pick between superpowers

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Tuesday 28 January 2020 08:56 GMT

Brexit timeline: From 2013 referendum promise to a 2020 exit

Special relationships can sour so easily. Just ask Meghan Markle’s dad. Thomas Markle has vowed to have a “stunning” row with his daughter in court, and promised to air more dirty laundry every 30 days if she and Harry don’t get in touch with him to sort out their differences. Looks like Boris Johnson is setting himself up for his own “stunning” transatlantic row as he prepares to defy the White House and give Chinese tech giant Huawei the go-ahead to build part of Britain’s 5G network. We won’t have to wait 30 days for the Americans to air their grievances. Top Trump official Mike Pompeo will fly in London for showdown talks after today’s big announcement. I’m Adam Forrest, and welcome to The Independent’s Inside Politics newsletter.

Inside the bubble

Our chief political commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for today:

The National Security Council will meet this morning to sign off the prime minister’s “solution” to the Huawei problem. An announcement is expected in the House of Commons in the afternoon. That will be after questions to health secretary Matt Hancock, in which the coronavirus outbreak is likely to feature. And it will be followed by the approval of Draft Release of Prisoners (Alteration of Relevant Proportion of Sentence) Order 2019 – a mostly symbolic law to make the government look tough by keeping a handful of dangerous criminals in prison longer.

Daily briefing

MY WAY OR THE HUAWEI: Well, it looks like he going to do it. Boris Johnson is widely expected to defy Donald Trump and many of his own MPs by giving the green light to the red dragon. The PM offered a very strong hint he would approve Chinese tech giant Huawei to build a restricted part of the 5G network, arguing it’s possible to get new infrastructure delivering “consumer benefits” without compromising “security interests”. Former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt questioned the “wisdom” of the move, former party leader Iain Duncan Smith said it was “utterly bizarre”, and former foreign affairs select committee chief Tom Tugendhat urged the PM against “nesting that dragon” and letting the “fox into the hen house” (mixing his metaphors in nicely multicultural fashion). The Americans? Still livid. Former Trump advisor Tim Morrison told the BBC it threatened the transatlantic trade deal and said: “We are talking about allowing the Chinese Communist Party into the telecommunications system.”

STUCK IN A MOMENT: The Specials thought Coventry was a ghost town, but they never went to Wuhan. The fate of hundreds of Britons stranded in the Chinese city – epicentre of the coronavirus – is mounting into a crisis for the government. The Foreign Office is now coming in for fierce criticism for failing to evacuate them, five days on from the start of a lockdown. Scientist Graham Hubbard described their plight in vaguely zombie movie-like terms, saying “we are trapped in our rooms, surrounded by a ghost town” with “no practical help from our own government”. Another unnamed Brit was quoted as saying: “It’s an utter p***take that we’re being left here like this.” Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said “they need to get this evacuation sorted now”, while the Lib Dems’ acting leader Ed Davey said it was “extremely disappointing that ministers are still dragging their feet”. Will they get them out in time for Brexit?

COMMA AGAIN PLEASE: The best public information campaigns ever? What about “Dig for victory”? “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases”? The “Charley says…” stuff? There was that time the government launched a multi-million pound publicity blitz to prepare the public for leaving the EU in way so dangerous you couldn’t possibly prepare for it – and didn’t end up happening anyway. That was a laugh. According to the National Audit Office, £46m was spent on the “Get ready for Brexit” campaign ahead of the non-departure in October. The spending watching said there was no evidence it left people “significantly better prepared”. A waste of money, in other words. Speaking of cash and pointless gestures, the author Sir Philip Pullman has called for a boycott of the 50p Brexit coins on the basis of grammar – objecting to a missing Oxford comma in the message: “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.” As the band Vampire Weekend sang: “Who gives a f*** about an Oxford comma?”

WICKED GAMES: Another day, another irate Brexiteer. Winning just doesn’t satisfy some people. An EU document seen by The Times apparently reveals Brussels diplomats will insist the European Court of Justice enforce the terms of the trade deal. Iain Duncan Smith – the man for whom no Brexit could ever be hard enough – fumed: “We have simply got to say no. Nobody in their right minds would accept this.” Leo Varadkar, meanwhile, was in Jose Mourinho mode on Monday, playing mind games over the UK’s imminent exit. The Irish premier claimed the EU had the upper hand in trade talks because of population and market size, and claimed we British were yet to realise how small we’re about to be. “If these were two teams up against each other playing football, who do you think has the stronger team?” The PM played it cool, saying only he had to “respectfully disagree” with Leo’s doubts a deal could be done this year.

ARCURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER: Jenny from the block is back! Boris Johnson’s former closer personal friend Jennifer Arcuri has returned to the scene with a plea to the PM’s right-hand man Dominic Cummings: let me help you hire some weirdos. Writing an open letter to Cummings in The Daily Mail, the ex-model turned tech entrepreneur said: “I can certainly recommend a few oddballs who could help. I’ve been hiring people like that for years.” She revealed too many people in Westminster have sex on the brain. Recalling a meeting with MPs at which she brought up “penetration testing” (programmers’ jargon for seeking out weaknesses), she said they “sniggered like smutty schoolchildren”. There will be no smut in Arcuri’s super-serious new, regular tech column for political magazine Standpoint. Editor Edward Lucas said: “I’m big on genuine intellectual diversity and she is really good at the human side of cyber security.”

On the record

“We hope it works out for them but if it does not, there will always be a seat kept for them at the table.”

Leo Varadkar on the Brits, Brexit and a possible reunion in Brussels one day.

From the Twitterati

“I am never using or accepting this coin.”

Anti-Brexit campaigner Lord Adonis on the notorious 50p piece...

“The grim truth is that, ultimately, Britain’s most promising socialist project since 1945 wasn’t destroyed by Murdoch or the City of London - but by people who boycott 50 pence pieces they don’t like. They were never remotely serious - but progressively informed Labour policy.”

…while Pro-Corbyn pundit Aaron Bastani blames the anti-coin folk for the end of Corbynism.